


In the night we’ll wish this never ends

by noxelementalist



Series: The Troubles of Dean Forester [2]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: First Kiss, Goodbyes, Last Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 14:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21447343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxelementalist/pseuds/noxelementalist
Summary: “Let’s settle whatever the hell this is once and for all,” Tristan said. “You wanna know how good a kisser I am? Then kiss me. Right here. Right now.”
Relationships: Dean Forester/Tristan Dugray
Series: The Troubles of Dean Forester [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1958110
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	In the night we’ll wish this never ends

**Author's Note:**

> This is due entirely to me having more feels than I anticipated for Gilmore Girls. Song from Blink-182’s “I Miss You,” which is…a far more achingly tragic song than it gets credit for.
> 
> set after season 2, episode 9 “Run Away, Little Boy” (so spoilers for that.)

Tristan wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what type of reputation he was leaving behind him: a broody, troublemaking heartbreaker with a smart mouth and a rap sheet of inventive pranks that would’ve gotten him sent to juvie if he wasn’t one of the Dugrays. That’s all Tristan had ever been since the moment he started at Chilton, and it was a damn good way to be a teenager. He wasn’t going to start regretting any of the times- or people- he’d had there.

Well, maybe except one.

_Mary can take care of herself, _Tristan thought as he shuffled down the hall, feet scuffing the checkered floorboards that clashed with the oaken walls of Chilton like a mismatched chessboard. _And even if she can’t, grocery boy’ll…_

It was a thought Tristan found he didn’t want to complete, one that made his stomach sink in ways he knew couldn’t be blamed on his faded wool-knit trapping the school’s heating better than his uniform ever had, but wish he could. Much better to think instead of Rory Gilmore, wrapped up in plush gold and blue, looking like she’d actually miss seeing him hanging around her locker.

_At least somebody will, _he thought_._

“I know sir,” Marshall was telling him as he guided him out the doors towards where the limo was waiting. “It’s always hard to say goodbye. But don’t worry. Why, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of prospects for you in the future.”

“Thanks Marshall,” Tristan told the limo driver. “I appreciate it.”

Tristan didn’t tell Marshall that it was exactly the potential for prospects that worried him. Chilton was a private school. Oh sure, not one of the boarding schools like Welton Academy was, but a private, _co-ed_ school nonetheless. There were things that a guy like Tristan could get away with. Things like managing to date half the girls in his grade, or screwing around with their boyfriends on the side. Knowing his dad, military school was going to be private, boarding, and _all-male_. There was far less a guy like Tristan could get away with.

Which was the point, of course, but Tristan didn’t have to like it.

_So long hallowed halls, _Tristan thought as he hopped into the limo, Marshall shutting the door behind him. _It’s been real._

***

“I must say, you’re taking not being in the play rather hard sir,” Marshall said as they drove. “I didn’t think you were such a thespian.”

“The play?” Tristan asked. He’d sprawled out along the backseat of the limo, his canvas fleece bunched together into a makeshift pillow under his head, watching the reflection of trees in headlights bouncing off the tinted limo windows. “Nobody cares about a stupid performance of Romeo’s death scene. Even if I was going to be an awesome Romeo.”

“I take it then this has to do with the lady who was playing Juliet?”

_Everything has to do with her_, Tristan thought to himself. “Yes Marshall,” he said aloud, “it has to do with her.”

“Beg your pardon sir, but I don’t recall you feeling this way about your previous paramours.”

“That’s because they weren’t my paramours,” Tristan explained. “They were barely _hook-ups. _Most of them took one look at me and wanted in my pants- not that I’m complaining, or anything.”

“Of course not.”

“Marshall?” Tristan asked. “Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?”

“Merely remembering another young man who enjoyed his youth in much the same fashion.”

“If you’re talking about my dad, trust me, we didn’t do it in the same fashion.”

_At least, _Tristan thought to himself, _not unless he also had the soccer team captain blow him in the locker room showers after he made out with the captain’s girlfriend at a house party._

“Right,” Marshal was saying. “But this girl was something else.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what she was,” Tristan sighed.

“Then I’m deeply sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks buddy.”

“You know, whenever your father was brokenhearted, I used to get him ice cream.”

“Ice Cream?”

“Oh yes,” Marshall continued, his voice echoing over the barrier that divided his driver seat from the rest of the limo. “It drove your grandfather crazy. Said I was rewarding his bad behavior dallying around with all those debutantes.”

“You dared to counter the great Janlen DuGray and you only tell me _now_?”

“Well, one doesn’t like to brag about common decency sir.”

“Marshall, take it from me,” Tristan said, thinking of the weeks he’d spent watching his grandfather order everyone around from a sick bed. “You’re a real rebel.”

“Thank you sir.”

“But somehow,” Tristan continued, “I don’t think sweets are going to fix this.”

“To be sure, you have nowhere near the sweet tooth your father had,” Marshall said. “But I thought perhaps a late night coffee or a burger might be appreciated? After all, it is a long drive to North Carolina sir.”

“Wait, we’re not flying?” Tristan asked, raising his head up enough to look at the back of Marshall’s head. “Seriously?”

Marshall shook his head. “I am afraid not sir. You have tonight to pack, and then we head out bright and early tomorrow at 9 AM. With any luck,” Marshal continued, ignoring the sound of Tristan groaning in the back, “we shall arrive in Philadelphia in time for lunch, then Washington D.C. for the evening, before setting out again and arriving in North Carolina in the evening the day after.”

_“_Okay sure. Yeah, let’s- let’s get something,” Tristan replied.

“Excellent,” Marshall said. “Ah, I know! Let’s try this place. I heard from some of the people at the performance it has a good reputation.”

Tristan looked up and watched as Marshall parked on the street besides a white building that had the word FOOD scrawled out in bright yellow across a window. The building straddled the corner of the block, and in the streetlight Tristan could just make out what looked like a small sign in the shape of a coffee cup with the word “Luke’s” hanging in front of its door.

_Rory mentioned a Luke’s_, Tristan thought to himself, making sure to slide his jacket as he got out of the limo, absentmindedly shutting the door behind him. “Are we in Stars Hollows?”

“Yes, sir we are,” Marshall said as he approached the diner’s door. “But never fear. I doubt anybody here knows you.”

Just then the door opened, letting out a young man with a leather jacket and charcoal pants, the lights spilling out from Luke’s highlighting his brown, parted hair.

_What is this night, _Tristan thought as he realized who it was.

“Ah, excuse me,” Marshall said. “Is this Luke’s Diner?”

“Yeah, it is,” he said.

“Marshall,” Tristan began, only to find himself cut off as the young man looked at him.

“…You.”

“Me.”

“Do the two of you know each other?” Marshall asked slowly.

“Yeah, me and Dean know each other,” Tristan told him.

“We know each other real well,” Dean said firmly.

“Ah,” Marshall said. “Well, in that case, I’ll wait inside.”

“Marshall,” Tristan began, “that’s really—”

“Just so the two of you can say farewell,” Marshall said. “Truly, not a bother. I’ll see you inside in a bit.”

“Farewell?” Dean asked as Marshall walked by him into Luke’s, the door falling shut behind him accompanied by the sound of a diner bell ringing. “What’s he talking about?”

“Didn’t hear when I was telling—”

“I wasn’t listening in on you and Rory talking.”

_No, just watching me. _“My dad pulled me out of Chilton,” Tristan said aloud.

Dean snorted. “Whose girlfriend you get caught with?”

“I got caught breaking into a dude’s safe, okay,” Tristan replied harshly.

“…seriously?”

“It was a prank. A joke.”

“Yeah, with a seriously bad punch line.”

“Well, I’m heading out for military school in North Carolina, of all places, so the joke’s on me, don’t worry.”

“No, I- man.”

“What?”

“Dude, it’s- it’s not that I don’t want to care,” Dean told him, walking down the steps of the diner towards Tristan. “It’s just, _literally_ the only thing I know about you is that you kept harassing Rory, so it’s pretty hard to.”

“I _wasn’t harassing _her.”

“Right, you were just forcibly trying to make friends with a girl who didn’t want you.”

“You- you know, what is your problem?” Tristan asked as he stared at the other man. “I’m out of this picture, okay? You win! You get the smart, funny, sexy girl. I get military boarding school.”

“But I wouldn’t have, would I.”

“What?”

“If you weren’t going, you’d still be after her,” Dean told him. “And it’d only be a matter of time till she chose you.”

“Hey, not that I’m not flattered—“

“I’m not _stupid_ you know. I know the two of you must’ve done something. No guy carries books for a girl like that without—“

“Without what?” Tristan asked the other man. “What?”

“I-I don’t know, something!” Dean insisted, shuffling around enough that his jacket slid slightly open, revealing a tiny gap of skin along his neck between it and the collar of what Tristan remembered seeing earlier was a long-sleeve over a t-shirt. “I tell her I love her on our three month anniversary, she doesn’t reply at all. I see you with her and she blurts it out? Come on. Something happened. You- you had to at least have kissed her.”

Tristan huffed. “Alright fine, we kissed,” Tristan said truthfully. “One glorious kiss right after I got dumped by my ex-girlfriend at a house party and you dumped her because you were _stupid_ enough to think about letting her go.”

“You know, I almost believe you, but somehow I don’t think you’re that great a kisser.”

“That- you know what,” Tristan retorted, his arms flailing, “let’s find out.”

“Excuse me?”

“Let’s settle whatever the hell this is once and for all,” Tristan said. “You wanna know how good a kisser I am? Then kiss me. Right here. Right now.”

“Yeah?” Dean replied challengingly.

“Yeah. Bring it on.”

“Fine, okay,” Dean said. “Kiss this.”

Tristan barely had time to process the fact that the other teenager was about to kiss him when he felt Dean’s hands wrap around Tristan’s face and pull him forward, the touch of chapstick coated lips sliding against him.

_Oh Joseph, he’s- oh. Oh. _

_Well then. That explains it._

For a moment the two of them just stood there, kissing in front of Luke’s under the streetlight. There were traces of sensation Tristan could idly recognize: the feel of their jackets brushing against each other. Dean’s bangs sliding silkily against the tips of Tristan’s hair. The feel of Dean’s hands slowly falling, tracing down onto Tristan’s chest.

Warm puffs of traded breath. Slight twitches that, in other places and other times, Tristan would’ve taken as a signal to step just slightly closer, to press Dean against the diner wall or the streetlamp or even the limo, to taste the hollow of Dean’s neck while Dean held onto him.

And then it ended, Dean taking one small step to pull back away from Tristan.

Tristan couldn’t help the tiny gasp he made as he fluttered open eyes he hadn’t known he closed to see Dean, wide-eyed and flushed, Dean’s hands falling down to rest at his sides.

“That- that was- you’re _really_ _good_,” Dean panted quietly.

“You-you too,” Tristan whispered. “We could- we could do this again?”

“We should.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah- I- I think-“

“Is everything alright out here?” Marshall shouted, opening the door of the diner.

“Yes!” Tristan shouted back. “I’ll be there in a sec! Sorry about that,” he added as Marshall shut the door.

“Yeah, kinda ruined the vibe,” Dean muttered.

“You said it.”

“You know,” Dean said after a moment, “if-if I’d’ve known that you were…I mean, the three of us could’ve…”

“We could’ve been great,” Tristan completed, trying not to think too deeply at the implication that Dean- of all people- would’ve been open to- to being in some kind of threesome with him and Rory if he’d known Tristan was an option. “I’d take care of Rory at Chilton. You’d take care of her here.”

“We’d take care of each other anytime we could sneak out,” Dean whispered.

“We’d fight a lot, and shout a lot. You’d be stubborn, and I’d be right.”

“You’d be an _ass_, and _I’d _be right.”

“And then we’d make-up and do it all over again.”

Dean smiled. It was a soft, wistful looking thing to Tristan. “We would.”

“We wasted so much time fighting.”

“Hey, it got us to our first make-up session.”

Tristan smiled, a grin he was sure was brittle and tired. “But not to our second,” he pointed out. “Instead I’ve got to go to military school. No girls anywhere.”

“…At least you get guys in uniform.”

“Not one in a green apron.”

“No,” Dean murmured back. “No, you won’t find any of those.”

“Hey,” Tristan said, hoping the look on his own face wasn’t-wasn’t as fragile as he was feeling, that it was as charming and memorable as his Mary’s had been, as the look on Dean’s was. “How about one last kiss? You know, for the road?”

“How about one last kiss until you get back?”

“That works.”

Dean leaned forward and kissed Tristan again, a soft, breathy thing that pulled at Tristan’s heart. The type of kiss Tristan knew, from years of experience, was sad and sweet and full of promises no one could keep. Tristan had even given one before- on a dare, years ago, to Paris of all people.

If he’d known it felt like this, with warm arms wrapping around his waist, Tristan might’ve reconsidered.

“Goodbye Dristan,” Dean whispered teasingly as, at last, he pulled away.

Tristan chuckled. “Goodbye Joseph,” he said, taking one last look at the man. “Take care of her for me.”

“Joseph? My name’s Dean,” Dean said confusingly after him as Tristan walked up to the diner.

“Ask Rory,” Tristan told him as he opened the door to the diner to step in, waving a hand in farewell behind him.

The door shut before he could hear a response, but as he made his way over to the counter, Tristan could see Dean standing outside through the windows, and watched as he shrugged, grinned, and waved a half wave at the diner before walking away.

“That was some goodbye,” Marshall told Tristan from where he had sat at the diner counter. “You’ll miss each other greatly I take it?”

“Yeah,” Tristan replied, shrugging his jacket off onto the floor. “Yeah, we will.”


End file.
